Half of the battle of developing an email marketing campaign is obtaining leads; but once you have them, do you know what to do with them?

The biggest mistake most marketers make is grouping all of their leads together. Many marketers forget the golden rule of email marketing: the way you talk to your clients should be different than the way you talk to your prospects.

Instead of sending one message to everyone, do this:

It Starts with How you Collect

Many of us are guilty of collecting only the information needed to get the job done. When you are doing email marketing you only need the prospect’s email address, right? Wrong.

To run a successful email marketing campaign, you need more. Remember, the more information you are able to collect, the better you can understand your prospect’s needs.

Start the collection process with a landing page. A prospect’s willingness to complete a landing page form is dependent on form length, the type of information requested and the value of the offer provided once the form is completed (i.e. access to a white paper or e-book download). Meet with your sales and marketing teams to discuss what information is absolutely necessary to collect.

The complexity of the form will also depend on the types of leads you hope to collect.

A short and simple form typically results in more leads.

A longer form typically results in more qualified leads, but you have to be okay with deterring a portion of your website visitors with the length and question complexity.

How to Achieve with iContact Pro Select: Utilize the landing page feature in our software.

Then, You Can Divide and Conquer.

Whether you have a contact list of several thousand subscribers or you are starting out with only a list of 20, chances are every single person on that list has a different set of needs. Segmenting your general subscriber contact list will allow you to send more targeted messages.

If you have already changed the way you collect information, through the questions you ask on your landing page, segmentation should come easily.

Discuss with your sales and marketing team which sub-lists matter most. Common segments include:

Geographic Area

o Are your services tailored to local areas? It could be helpful to highlight local events or promotions.

Product and Service Preferences

o If your business sells several different types of products or services, prospects or clients may only be interested in one area of your business. Target your communication based on the products or services your prospects are interested in so that you can provide them with more information.

Mailing Frequency/ Type of Information Preferences

o Sometimes marketers think providing their prospect with a lot of information is the best method to entice them to buy. This is not always the case! Segmenting based on the frequency or type of information can keep customers in the know without feeling overwhelmed by too many emails from your company.

How to Achieve with iContact Pro Select: Utilize the email segmentation feature in our software.

Finally, Drip and Nurture Away.

Develop a sales nurture funnel for all of your prospects to go through. Remember, even this funnel can be divided based upon existing segmentations that you have set up for your contacts. This will help you provide information of value to all of your contacts.

Typically an email campaign for lead nurturing consists of 2 to 3 emails during the sales cycle. Coordinate with your sales team to discuss the length of your company’s full sales cycle. If the cycle is 30 days, emails should be spaced out evenly on the 1st, 10th and 20th days after the landing page sign-up occurs.

Provide value

Just because a prospect requests more information does not mean you should bombard them with demos, quotes and sales pitch material. Nurturing is not slapping the prospect in the face with multiple sales pitches. Most prospects are not ready to buy right away and an approach that is too aggressive will send them heading for the hills.

Instead, offer the prospect something of value. Send them an infographic, eBook, white paper, webinar, or link to blog posts. The more value you can provide before the sale the better.

Set-up decision tree logic

You want to engage with a prospect that is engaging with you. Set up a workflow that puts objectives into place with the email marketing campaign. If a prospect clicks on links in the email or opens the email, this will automatically push the prospect further through the sales funnel.

iContact Pro Select best practice: Convert more leads by scoring your prospect’s actions. Create customized scoring criteria that will show who is hot and who is not.

Laura is an innovative thought leader with deep expertise in content & email marketing and public relations. As a Marketing Consultant at iContact Pro Select, she has transformed her passion of interacting with consumers and brands into a career. With creativity and spunk that is unrivaled by others, she passionately works with clients across several industries to leverage their marketing campaigns. Prior to starting with the company, Laura graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Journalism and Opera.